To not want to work full time? Would you choose part time permanently?

[speakout]

If you could would a 20 hour a week suit you?
Now that my youngest is about to go off to Uni I have no desire to increase to full time hours.
Wouldn't that be ideal for everyone- assuming money was not pressing.

Absolutely it's fine.

Of course!

Yes! Working part time gives an amazing work life balance, I absolutely would forever if it is affordable

Hell yes. I think it's the perfect balamce

The problem is the lack of decently paid part time work.
Zero hours etc.Part time work is looked down upon, often done by women, traditionally for "pin money".

Assuming it's financially doable yes of course, why not? Ideally when our mortgage is cleared I'd love to work PT. I can think of a million things I'd like to do 2/3 days a week rather than work.

The only problem I hove found with part-time is depending on the industry/culture there is definitely an element of "just" part-time. I think in most workplaces (but not all) it's still very hard to seriously apply to yourself to your career and work part-time.

In my ideal world everyone would work a four day week and we'd be so happy with our new found work life balance that we'd actually be more productive so could still earn a FT salary

Yes the balance.

I love having the time to exercise, to potter, to nurture myself, to run an organised house without being exhausted.

My OH works 50-60 hours a week and he is constantly frazzled.
Thankfully because I work only half time I can ease some of the pressure from him.

If I could afford to, I would love to do a 29 hr week!

I rarely worked full time. Had to in a few jobs, but really wasn't my bag. Plenty of stuff to do outside of work :)

20 hr week, not 29, obviously.

I'd be a sahm if money wasn't an issue!

I work part time though and don't plan to work full time at the very least until currently preschool aged dc are old enough to look after themselves for a few hours after school.

I think the working week could be extended. with more part time workers things could be a lot more flexible, and ease the difficulties ( of let's face it) working mothers.

A 20 hour week is the holy grail. If money isn't an issue it's perfect.

If you don’t need to work full time then don’t.

I work 4 days a week and can’t see me ever going to 5. I have quite a stressful job and a lot of commuting. Dh half jokingly moans sometimes that he works full time and I don’t. I say I will be quite happy to work full time but it will be in some sort of retail or admin job and I would earn less than what I do for 4 days a week plus the housework wouldn’t get done. He soon shuts up!

I don't know whether going full time would afford you a better retirement in a few years time or just a more interesting job now?

But essentially it must be much nicer to work part time and have time for hobbies if your finances are ok.

Someone, somewhere has hoodwinked us all into thinking all our time must be financially productive, or at least socially productive like raising children and cleaning.

I’ve done 15 hrs pw since the DC went to primary, now they’re at secondary I’m upping it to 25 hr pw in term time, 15 hr pw school holidays. Ringfencing Fridays for me

It’s not a top level job, certainly not the cachet of the job I had pre DC but I enjoy it, it’s interesting, I love the people I work with and it’s super flexible which really works for me.

No way do I want FT. I’d do FT if DH lost his job though and it was needed. We are lucky it’s not.

No.....I'd go stir crazy for the rest of the time

I love working full-time

Absolutely. In fact that's what I do. I work freelance, part time. I can't imagine working traditional full time hours at this point - I'm nearly 40 and this is how I have almost always worked, and it suits my personality and what I do for a living anyway.

Not for me, I wouldn't earn enough or be paying enough into my pension

Life is too short to work full time.

I work four days. Prefer to work 3. As more and more jobs are “automated”, we need to share the jobs out so I think more part time is better.

See I don't go stir crazy- in fact even working 20 hours a week I still don't feel there are enough hours in the day.
I wake up excited at the thought of a new day.
I gym a lot, my job is not clearly defined in terms of where a hobby stops and paid work begins.
I work in a creative field, so daydreaming, walking in the forest for ideas or trying new projects is partly fun/partly work.
Sometimes things I do just for pleasure turn out to be the spark for a new idea that earns, sometimes there is a bit of grind having to get orders out and posted.

But I am never stir crazy- always a hundred ideas buzzing around in my mind.

No, I couldn't watch my husband working those many hours and feeling frazzled whilst I did the odd few hours. Even working full time hours you would still have more than enough time to look after a house whilst he was at work. I'd lose any respect for a partner that did this unless they were meeting their 50% of all bills so t was only their personal spends it affected.

YANBU - nobody elses business really. If it is something you and DH are happy with then go for it.

I wouldn't work at all if I didn't have to.

I actually agree with yellow I couldn't watch DH suffer with being frazzled while I pottered about, unless this was absolutely his choice!